She was 24, and nobody had taken it seriously

Not a study. Our own patients.

Almost everything written about exosome therapy for hair loss comes from somewhere else. A manufacturer’s trial, a small study in another country, a summary of a summary. Useful, but it is not us, and it is not you.

So we started keeping our own record. Every patient who has the treatment is scanned at the start and scanned again as they go, on the same machine, in the same clinic. We now have complete before and after scan data for 37 people.

Most of them are in their forties, fifties and sixties. This one was 24.

Chapter one: what the first scan found

She came to us in January 2026. She had been noticing her hair thinning for a while, and had spent that while being told she was too young for it to be anything.

Her overall scalp score came back at 69 out of 100. That does not sound alarming on its own. The context is what matters: the scanner compares you against people of the same age and sex, and against the 111,986 women in their twenties it had on record, she ranked 92,670th.

That is the bottom 17 per cent for her age. The average for women in their twenties is about 76.

This is the reason we scan rather than eyeball. A 69 in your sixties would be a perfectly ordinary reading. At 24 it means something has been going on for some time.

Her follicle density was essentially normal. What had dropped was how much hair those follicles were producing and how thick it was. At her age that is a more hopeful pattern than the reverse, because nothing has been lost yet, it has just gone quiet.

One note on the panel above. That detailed breakdown comes from the full scan we run at the first appointment. What we track from then on is the overall score and the photographs.

Chapter two: what we did

She had four sessions of exosome therapy between January and April 2026.

She took no hair medication alongside it. No dutasteride, no hair concentrate injections, no scalp botox.

Worth saying for anyone her age reading this: hair loss in your twenties has a longer list of possible causes than hair loss at 60, and some of them are worth ruling out with your GP rather than treating cosmetically. That conversation is part of the consultation, not an afterthought.

Chapter three: what changed

By 21 April her overall score had gone from 68.1 to 74.1, a rise of 6.08 points over fourteen weeks. That takes her from the bottom 17 per cent to roughly the average for her age.

The crown shows more hairs, thicker shafts, and clearer groupings where before there were single strands over visible scalp.

We have put one scan pair on this page rather than two. Her front-of-scalp pair is harder to read, with an area that looks thinner in the later image even though the overall score rose. We would rather show you the pair that is clear and tell you the other one exists than pick the flattering half of a set and say nothing.

There is no head-and-shoulders photograph pair here either. Her clinic photographs start six weeks into treatment, so they cover a different stretch of time from the scans, and putting them side by side would be comparing two different periods.

How we measured it, and where the measurement is soft

We use a scalp scanner in clinic called Becon. It takes magnified photographs at set points around the head, then produces a single score out of 100 for the overall condition of the scalp and hair.

It is not a perfect instrument. When we went back through our own records, the same set of photographs re-analysed on different occasions came back up to 4 points apart. So we treat anything under about 4 points as too small to call a real change.

Her 6.08 clears that, though not by as much as some of our other cases. Her one unclear scan pair is a fair reason to hold the result a little more loosely than the number alone suggests.

What this does and does not tell you

Fourteen weeks is a short window and four sessions is a short course. This is an early result and we do not know from this record where it settled.

Hair loss has a lot of causes, and in your twenties that list is longer. Thyroid problems, iron levels, stress, and several other things can thin hair, and some of them need treating rather than covering up. Nobody can look at her numbers and tell you what yours would be, and nobody should treat you before working out what is actually going on.

Frequently asked questions

Am I too young for this to be real?

No. She was 24 and sat in the bottom 17 per cent for her age group, which is not something you can dismiss as normal. Being told you are too young to be losing hair is common and it is not a diagnosis. A scan gives you a number against people your own age, which is a much more useful answer than an opinion.

Should I see my GP first?

If your hair loss started suddenly, or came with other changes such as fatigue, weight changes or changes to your skin and nails, then yes, and blood tests are worth having. Hair thinning in your twenties can be a sign of something treatable underneath. You do not need a referral to see us, and we will tell you if we think you should be seeing your GP as well.

Does starting younger mean better results?

We cannot tell you that from our records. She is the only person in her twenties in them, so there is nobody to compare her with. What her scan did show is a normal follicle count with reduced output, which is generally a more workable starting point than lost follicles, and that has more to do with what stage the thinning is at than with age itself.

What is the scalp score, and can I see mine?

It is a number out of 100 that our scanner produces from magnified photographs of your scalp taken at several points around your head. Higher is better, and it is compared against people of your own age and sex. You can absolutely see yours. We scan at your first appointment and again as you go.

Are these results typical?

Hers is close to the middle of what we have recorded. Across the 37 patients we have complete before and after scans for, the typical improvement was around 7 points. Five showed a change too small to count as real, and one got slightly worse. The chart on this page shows all of them.

Is this available on the NHS?

No. Exosome therapy for hair loss is a private treatment and is not available through the NHS. The NHS does provide support for some causes of hair loss, particularly where it is linked to an underlying medical condition, so it is worth speaking to your GP if you have not already.